The Alternative EEE Freshers Guide: The Course

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• Introduction
• The Course
• UROP
• Department Facilities
• Facilities On and Off Campus
• Living in Halls
• Get a life
• Finding Accommodation
• A Day in the Life of...
• The Authors

Quote from anonymous EEE student: "Two hours a day? I expect that was my entire workload for the first term of 1st year"

The hardest job for any new or prospective EEE student is to know who to believe. On one hand you have Professor Cheung, the man in charge of the course. He will tell you how this course is the best of its kind in the country and how hard you will have to work to make a success of your time here. Then there is the disillusioned 2nd year. Before you can ask how to pass the exams he will have told you how he hates the course, the complete lack of women and is considering dropping out to study geography at Nottingham. You then hear from the upbeat 3rd year who says he is in fact enjoying studying the variety of subjects on offer. Obviously, he would never admit this in public for fear of being stigmatised a geek. Finally, you could try and ask a fourth year, but they'd probably be too busy working on their final year project. So who do you trust? There is no simple answer. Like snowflakes, no two EEE students, are alike. Some will flutter through the course with the minimum amount of work. Others will spend their lives in a blizzard of revision. The key to making it through the academic side of university it to learn for yourself the best way to do things. Hopefully, this quick guide to the academic side of being an EEE student will provide all the information you need to make your own mind up.

After a long relaxing break since A-levels, the start of first year can be a tough time academically, especially given the hectic social life that goes with being a fresher. After a 'getting to know you' group project in the first week, the course begins properly in the second week with lectures, lab work and study groups, adding up about to 25 hours a week, should you attend them all. Study groups occur once a week for each subject. In these, a lecturer or postgraduate works through problems with a group of sixteen students. Some people will find these really useful, if only to make sure you do any work at all. Lab work represents the practical side of the lecture courses, and involves working with a lab partner on experiments ranging from microcontroller programming to power electronics. Some are more fun, useful or easier than others. But there's no point in complaining about them because they're all compulsory! They make up about a quarter of your first year mark through lab reports, log books, oral exams and electronic tests.

The courses in first year cover all the basic theoretical elements of electrical engineering. And much of this involves maths, further maths, even further maths and maths that is so far away that it verges on philosophy. At least that's how it may seem at first. Fortunately, there are extra study groups laid on for those who find it the hardest, and you are not expected to know anything beyond A Level Maths. Even so, it would be fair to say you will have a massive advantage if you have done A Level Further Maths.

It may be better to call the second year 'First Year, Part 2: this time its personal', since it's just more of the same: more labs, more projects, more maths, and more work. The idea is that in the first two years you will have a decent grounding in all the fundamental aspects of electrical and electronic engineering. The workload necessary to achieve this is high, especially in the second year. The projects, coursework, lab work, and exams involved in the course mean it is practically impossible to coast through the course. There is however, a light at the end of the tunnel: Third year.

It may seem peculiar, but for most people the third year is easier than the second. Firstly, instead of having ten subjects, you do just seven, although you can in fact do up to nine if you want to, with the subjects receiving extra weighting. Secondly, instead of only compulsory subjects you have a choice from about twenty, so you can specialise in what you find interesting, or more realistically what is easier for you. There are even dozens of non-technical subjects to choose from finance to philosophy. Since coursework for each subject can usually be done in your own time, most students will have a timetable of just 7 hours a week. Some lucky people even end up with 4-day weekends. Naturally, its not as easy as it sounds - the coursework which comes with each subject can take a lot of effort, and the subjects are generally harder than those in the previous two years.

Wake up! It's a lecture!

From the point of view of a first year student, the fourth year is a very long way away. The main distinguishing feature of it is the final year project, which constitutes 40% of the year's mark and will gradually take over your life towards the end of your final year. There is a wide range of projects available, but if you don't fancy any of the ones offered you can always suggest your own. Past projects have ranged from a USB oscilloscope to the intriguing 'Musical Improvisation by Computer'

Of course, the passage to fourth year depends mainly on success in your exams. These are in the final term each year. There is also the extremely unfestive 'Christmas Test' in first year, but this does not contribute to your grade. Its main purpose is to scare you into realising how little work you have done. The most useful tactic for doing well in exams is to practice on past exam papers. There is often a high chance of finding similar questions in the exams.

The fact is that this is no Mickey Mouse degree. It takes four years and a lot of hard work to earn that one piece of paper saying "Congratulations - you have a degree." Fortunately this piece of paper is worth on average £23,000 a year to a grauduate EEE student. Hows that for motivation.

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